Economic Highlights

New Delhi, 2 April 2010

Power Projects

CAG WARNS OF GANGA DRYING

By Shivaji Sarkar

A billion people of this country needs two lakh megawatt power supply. The Prime Minister says the nation cannot progress without this vital input. So a massive effort is on to generate power through ethical or unethical means, even if it leads to a massive ecological fall out and desertification of the northern plains.

In this regard, many ridiculed the sadhus and Jagadguru Shankaracharya when they led a massive protest during the Kumbh Mela at Haridwar demanding stoppage of tunneling and hydro-electric projects on the Ganga and its tributaries in the Himalayas in Uttarakhand, called Devabhumi – God’s own land. The harbingers of modernization called it a medieval action to take the country backwards.

Now a very independent constitutional body, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has come to support what the sadhus have been saying – “the Ganga would dry up and desertify northern plains”. The CAG has stated the obvious – a corporate-government nexus is draining both the Ganga and the exchequer.

Remember the protesters of the Tehri Dam built on the Bhagirathi were similarly derided. It is possibly nobody’s case that the dam built by a private operator, almost after a decade of its completion is yet to get filled up and is producing power far below its stated capacity of 2400 mw. Is it a case of miscalculation or deliberate way to mislead policy makers?

The investments stated and the cost to the society for Tehri mega dam has not been measured properly. The total project cost alone would be around Rs 50,000 crore. (Official documents underestimate it). It does not include the cost of sinking the Tehri town and the 107 villages around it. It is camouflaged in the cost of Rs 594 core in rehabilitation. The project cost also does not include the land given to it for free.

A report last year said that the Alaknanda that gives a picturesque ambience to the Badarinath Valley had dried up almost five km below the Vishnuprayag dam and the hydro-power project. This was not taken seriously.

Apparently, the sadhus have shaken the people who matter. But few had thought that they would be supported by the CAG. It has given an alarming warning – “there would be no water in large stretches of the Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi river beds – the two major tributaries of the Ganga – if the Uttarakhand government goes ahead with 53 power projects on these two rivers. The river bed is already dry at Shrinagar in Garhwal”.

Additionally, it is affecting aquatic life and biodiversity. The CAG states that it might erase many of the biodiversities. This clearly is an indirect cost to human life. It is also threatened by a direct challenge. Many of the villages on the banks of the rivers may face immense problems as the rivers dry up. The CAG even fears mass migration. All this has a tremendous economic fall-out as people would be losing their livelihood and shall be reduced to penury.

Poverty in the area is high but life is sustainable owing to the rich biodiversity and availability of water. If that basis is lost, the cost on the government would directly be much more than what it might be earning from power generation.

Moreover, there is a social cost too. The area has not been known for crimes but it is rising now as people are finding living difficult. Crimes in modern economics are considered a law and order problem. But what is happening in parts of Uttarakhand is the result of a lopsided development approach. Thus, so-called modern solutions may not be appropriate to compensate for a rich biodiversity that Uttarakhand has. The locals complain that they are not much benefited by the generation of power. Over 75 per cent of it is exported to Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and the northern grid.

Somehow development has been made synonymous with profits and corporate growth. Uttarakhand has certainly attained that, though at a terrible cost to sustainable development and the growth that nature had helped it. Destruction to that basic is benefitting the few, who are depriving the area of its riches to fill the corporate and in many cases individual coffers. Let us not reduce Uttarakhand to the tribal areas of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

The CAG has faulted the Uttarakhand government for massive diversion of river water. But it seems for political reasons it has not raised the issue of diverting almost one-third of this water to Delhi. The Uttarakhand government is a successor to the erstwhile UP government and decisions are made by the Centre. Technically it has to take the blame for which it had not taken a decision except to continue the projects finalised in the 8^th and the 9th plans, when the State was not born.

While five power projects are already operational out of 53 sanctioned and under construction, more than 200 are in the pipeline. As a result of such intense construction of dams the report says that three to four km of the riverbed around each project will have no water.

Importantly, the State government needs to have a relook at its power and industrial policy. The State is supposed to be paid Rs 5 crore annually from each power project of above 100 mw and Rs 5 lakh if it is of less than 100 mw.  It is no surprise then that most of the projects are below 100 mw capacity. The private operators are earning a fortune whereas the state is to earn only about Rs 2.65 crore to not more than Rs 10 crore a year.

It is indeed a huge differential in the cost-benefit ratio. Added to this is the cost of not only drying up of Uttarakhand but of all the riparian States through which the Ganga flows. It should not be just seen as an ecological disaster or desertification of the northern plains alone but a threat to the bread basket of the country. Quantifying the losses in economic terms is difficult. It must be measured in terms of multiple benefits that the Ganga bestows-- some seen and many not.

Therefore, the nation needs to protect its pristine but fragile Himalayan ecology if it wants to continue on its growth trajectory. All the States need to compensate Uttarakhand through some annualised budgetary contributions on the promise that it protects its pristine ecology. The survival of the fragile State ensures the survival and sustenance not only in the northern plains but also the entire Indian sub-continent. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)